Canada's beef industry has done a good job in pulling themselves through the hard times brought on by the BSE crisis, which has kept the U.S. border closed to live cattle to the present time, local cattle producers were told.

The Weyburn office of Sask. Ag and Food held its annual Livestock Update Forum on Thursday at the Weyburn Inn, with around 80 from the area attending. Among the speakers was Brad Wildeman of Poundmaker AgVentures, who is involved with Saskatchewan's largest feedlots and with national and international organizations related to the cattle industry.

He provided an update on where the industry is at in handling the BSE crisis, comparing it to the situation prior to the finding of one cow in Alberta with the dreaded disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease.

Prior to May 20, the fateful day the U.S., Mexico and over 30 other countries shut their borders to all Canadian beef and cattle, Canada was the third largest exporter in the world, exporting 15 per cent of the beef. In Canada, Saskatchewan has 27 per cent of Canada's beef herd, more than all of the provinces east of Saskatchewan combined.

In 2002, due to drought, Canada sent 575,000 feeder cattle south into the U.S., said Wildeman, and as it turned out that was a good thing considering the border closure this year.

Since the borders partially reopened in September to allow boxed beef products from Canada, we are now shipping between 10 and 20 million pounds of beef weekly into the U.S., leading Wildeman to speculate, "When this business opens up, we're going to see significant increases in beef shipments." Canada is also shipping about 1.5 million pounds of beef into Mexico every week.

Wildeman said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) "did a great job" in investigating to ensure there were no other animals found with BSE in Canada, and part of their success was due to the daily information briefings provided to Canadians through the media of what they were doing and finding.

"I think Canadians got a lot of comfort from that. The other thing we did was submit to international review to look our process and make recommendations, and show the rest of the world we had nothing to hide. In the long term, that will put us in good position," he said.

Part of the good news story also is that Canadians stepped up in unprecedented numbers to eat Canadian beef and support the industry. Noting some comments that Canadians could never eat their way through all of the backlogged beef that couldn't be sold into the U.S., he noted Canadians consumed some 175,000 metric tonnes of beef, where the industry normally produces about 180,000 metric tonnes of beef, of which 60 per cent is exported.

Besides accepting boxed beef like the U.S., Mexico is also currently considering opening their borders to live bred dairy female cows.

In the meantime, many groups with trade and with the cattle industry are continuing to put pressure on the U.S. to reopen their borders to live cattle, said Wildeman. He noted their recommendation to reopen the border is open for comments until Jan. 5, so the timing of reopening the border is largely a political one.

Eligible cattle will likely include those under 30 months of age, feeder cattle from designated feedlots, fresh frozen beef, fresh whole or half carcasses, fresh beef liver and tongues.

Wildeman said he's logged a lot of travel time to talk to those in trade circles for both Canada and the U.S., as this is necessary to ensure they have an understanding of what's happening in the industry today. He said the industry needs to have a better understanding of the importance of organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) to help look after their interests.

"I just can't tell you how important the WTO is to western Canada. It's the most critical thing for our future; we better start looking after ourselves better. There's no one looking after us, we need to do it better," he said.